The present invention is directed to electronic components, and more particularly to a connector for mounting an LED to a printed circuit board (PCB).
The use of high intensity LEDs for general-purpose illumination, and in specialty lighting applications such as large signs and video display applications, has increased in recent years. Typically LEDs are mounted to PCBs by soldering them directly to the preprinted circuits. PCBs are most commonly manufactured using automated wave soldering techniques for mass production. If an LED fails after the PCB has been manufactured, the PCB is usually discarded and replaced with a replacement PCB, since field soldering of LEDs is, in most cases, inefficient and impractical. Although the cost of a replacement LED is negligible, the cost of labor and downtime associated with field soldering a replacement LED to a PCB is frequently greater than the cost to replace the entire PCB.
Some special purpose LED connectors have threaded bases and require machined assemblies to receive the threaded bases. These connectors feature multiple interconnecting parts. Internal threads must be machined in a connector body. Threaded LED terminations are accomplished by a screw action that is time consuming and adds to assembly costs. Moreover, the placement of the contacts on the PCB must be tightly controlled for the contact interfaces between the LEDs and the connectors to be reliable. Contact interfaces for the component parts of the PCBs may have a high variability in contact normal loads, which leads to early failures. Conversely, if the contact placement is tightly controlled, the fabrication costs may be greatly increased, making the devices impractical from a cost perspective.
What is needed is a connector to terminate a threaded LED that is reliable and permits the LED to be urged or snapped into position in the connector in a single motion. Other features and advantages will be made apparent from the present specification. The teachings disclosed extend to those embodiments that fall within the scope of the claims, regardless of whether they accomplish one or more of the aforementioned needs.